Sonic 2 for the Game Gear might actually be completable on the 3DS VC, since you could just save scum the damned first boss. Once you get past that... well, the game isn't
easy, but it isn't soul-rendingly difficult, either. Just make sure to get the emeralds (they're not that hard to get, barring Sky High's), or else you won't make it to Crystal Egg.
Y'know, one thing that bothers me about the Game Gear
Sonic games is how there are only six Chaos Emeralds. I mean, yeah, the first
Sonic only had six, too, but there were canonically seven as early as 1992, yet the Game Gear games stuck with six.
They even had brilliant plots about Eggman stealing one of the emeralds, which could easily explain the discrepancy... but nope, that just means you only have
five emeralds to get now. They do this same plot
three times, even:
- Sonic Chaos, where Eggman gets the red emerald, scattering the others to a parallel dimension and causing South Island to start sinking into the water.
- Sonic Triple Trouble, where Eggman actually gets all the emeralds, but has a backfire while testing one of his weapons which scatters them, after which he can only reclaim the yellow emerald.
- Sonic Blast, where Eggman tries to shoot Sonic with a laser beam but winds up hitting the gray emerald instead, shattering it into five shards, which he then goes and claims while Sonic and Knuckles have to get the other emeralds. (I might be misreading SNN's plot summary, and S&K actually go out to get the shards and Eggman gets diddly squat, not sure.)
...and yet, in all they just use it to justify not including a sixth emerald instead of why they don't have seven. I'm not sure if that's an admirably sticking to continuity with the other Game Gear games, or just laziness concerning not making sixth special stages for their games. I'm leaning toward the latter.
Also, as a non sequitur, I still can't get over how good "Turnabout for Tomorrow" was, good God in heaven
